Gwinner Abbey

Gwinner Abbey - our Nairobi abode

“My wife left me this morning.”

I’m standing in front of our house, looking at our driver, James.

He has just spent three hours on the road going to the airport and back to drop off one of our guests.  That’s Nairobi traffic for you.

I’m squirming on the inside. Clearly, James would like a sympathetic ear.  He’s jumpy and upset. But I also know that once he starts talking, he has a hard time stopping. And I’m not really his counselor or best friend. I’m supposed to be his employer.

James is the latest hire out of a series of people who take care of us, our house, and our guests in various ways. We get a kick out of the idea that our driver is named, James, and resist the temptation to say, “Home, James.”

The fact is that we’re not totally comfortable with all this domestic help. We didn’t grow up in Downton Abbey nor with a bevvy of staff accustomed to being ordered about to meet our every whim.

We had some exposure to this in Lima, where we had a live-in maid. The live-in part was her preference and not ours. She kept our apartment very clean in spite of its enormous size. And she drove me crazy.

Here in Nairobi we have a housekeeper (who, unlike a maid, goes home every evening). Britt picked her out, and deliberately chose someone whose temperament was the near opposite of our Lima maid. Our housekeeper is calm, competent, and discrete. She manages to keep our giant house sparkling and under control. And instead of driving me crazy, she helps keep me sane.

We also have an assembly of guards, with a regular day guard, a night guard, and a few others who replace them on their days off. They show up rain or shine, some of them walking an hour each way to get here. They wear crisp blue uniforms and stand very straight (as does just about every Kenyan I’ve met). They bond with our dog and watch who/what comes and goes, neatly keeping notes in a daily logbook.

Our yard is vast and full of trees

Then there’s the gardener, Jacob. We share him with the other houses of our compound, which are all owned by the same landlord. Our yard is nearly the size of a football field, and is covered with trees. There are exotic flowerbeds and flowering plants on the edges, which pretty much take care of themselves. But the trees drop leaves constantly. So Jacob spends a lot of time sweeping and raking. The swishing of his broom, made of fresh twigs, is a regular part of the morning concert at our house. It joins with the daily chorus of birds, chatting of guards, and shouting of instructions from the sports coaches at the school next door (who, in true British school form, start swim practice at 6:30 am regardless of the weather).

These people comprise the main cast of characters that makes up the “downstairs” crew of our upstairs/downstairs expat lifestyle. Others, such as the property manager, generator technician, plumber, and especially the electrician, Charles, make regular guest appearances.

The “upstairs” cast is small – mostly just Britt and I, plus occasional visiting family and guests.

The thing of it is, although we certainly don’t identify ourselves as part of the “upstairs” crowd, it’s a role that has been thrust upon us by our situation. We live with the stark contrast between our Unitarian ideals of equality and the vast inequalities between our lives and those of the people who work for and around us.

So, we pay salaries that are much higher than the norm. And we give the housekeeper extra money to provide lunch for all the staff. Because she’s very frugal, she stretches it to also cover breakfast and tea, which makes our house a very popular place with all the workers and repair people.

We try to be fair and generous in other ways.

And sometimes that means lending a sympathetic ear.

So, I listen as James lets off some steam about his wife’s departure. I tut-tut and say, “maybe it’s all for the best.”

And then we say goodbye for the weekend. He walks off to catch a bus to his humble abode, and I turn and step back into our house and the luxury of a privileged life.